Computer freezing... randomly!?

Discussion in 'Software' started by SirCanealot, Dec 9, 2004.

  1. SirCanealot

    SirCanealot Private E-2

    Hi, all.

    I'm having a problem with this damn PC.
    Basically, when running windows normally, it freezes, requiring a hard reboot, of course.
    However, I'm having trouble tracking down ANY clues behind the problems as there's no pattern to this.
    Generally it's very weird. It'll usually freeze up in the night while I sleep; it very rarely freezes when I'm actually using it.
    As I said, there's no pattern. It hasn't done it for the last week, and it freezes this morning, a few hours before I got up...
    Before that, it might freeze up at least once per day, or there might be a gap of another week, or a few days.

    Now, I'd point at heat - I often set video to encode through the night, and it often freezes in the middle of this. However, there are many nights where I do nothing but leave the PC on IRC, or set it to download some stuff, and it still freezes.
    It also doesn't freeze, EVER, when playing stuff like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2. Doom 3 especially will be running all hardware at 110%, so it'd make sense for it to freeze then.
    I'm fairly sure this computer runs fairly on the hot side, but if it ran hot enough to freeze up from heat, logic says Doom 3 will kill it each and every time.
    I think the ONLY problem I've had with Doom 3 was when my PSU blew out while playing it, but that's another story :p

    So I'm thinking software. I don't trust windows for anything (even though I still use it, haha), so I see no reason why it couldn't, somehow, be causing THIS problem too.

    I'm also somewhat worried about my CD-Roms... It crashed once straght after burning a DVD, and it's crashed once while watching a DVD on this PC.
    It also sometimes crashes on startup, when I have to reset it, after it detects the CD-Roms.

    My specs are...
    Atholn 2600+ XP (2.1ghz)
    1024megs DDR 333mhz ram (if anyone actually thinks it COULD be a memory problem, one of the 512 sticks is new: I could remove the old 512 stick, heh)
    A Radeon 9500
    Creative Sound Blaster Audigy I
    MSI 6712
    2 IDE HDs (one Maxtor and the other Seagate); one USBII HD (iomega)
    Teac CD-W524E
    Sony DVD RW DRU-510A
    Windows XP+ SP1


    Umm, can't think of anything else for now...
    All my drivers should be somewhat new.
    I know I've gone through a couple of graphics card drivers with this problem.
    Creative never update their sound drivers, but I'll check that later.
    I'm not sure about the motherboard: I hate screwing around with motherboard drivers, but I'm gonna see if I can see if there's anything newer tomorow, when I have some time.
    I'm also pretty sure I upgraded the bios a while back, so I don't THINK it's a 4 year old bios sitting in there or anything.

    But I thought I'd just post this here to see if anyone has any vague ideas to what is causing this problem.
    This problem has me flat out and annoyed. I have no idea how to fix it, and it's killing me when it crashes when I'm trying to encode a movie over 18 hours :/

    Sorry if I'm not making much sense here, but I don't have much sense to make with this problem.

    Thanks, all
     
  2. foogoo

    foogoo Major "foogoo" Geek

    Checked the event viewer in admin tools? While you systems sounds fairly new and should be 100% compatible with Windows APCM (?power management?) I'd look there, because you say it never fails you when your on it, yet when it is idle, or processing over night it locks up.. I had a similar problem, did you notice if the windows clock kept time or froze in the night?
     
  3. Farbib

    Farbib Corporal

    Ditto the Event Viewer approach. If you find the event, post it in detail. You sound like you know your computers, but I've gotta double-check Chkdsk and virtual memory have been examined, they are easy to overlook and may help here? 1) Booting into safe mode and running running a full Chkdsk with repair enabled. 2) Bumping up the virtual memory.
     
  4. ColonelAngus

    ColonelAngus Beefy

    Is your computer free of Spyware?
    Is your drive fragmented?
    Virtual Memory should be: Initial size 1536 and Maximum size 2048 since you have a gig of memory.
    Is your system restore taking up a lot of space and RAM?

    I can't think of anything else right now.
     
  5. SirCanealot

    SirCanealot Private E-2

    Right, I finally got around to trying some stuff...
    I've checked event viewer:
    http://www.williams1.homechoice.co.uk/EventApplication.jpg
    http://www.williams1.homechoice.co.uk/EventSystem.jpg

    It crashed last night just before I went to bed (about 2:40 or so), and it doesn't seem like there's anything there, apart from everything loading when I started my computer back up.
    And this thing DOES crash on me when I'm using it. It did it last night.
    However, it seems to only crash when I'm using it usually if I've left it for a while, then came back to it. eg, been off watching TV for 2 hours, I come back to the PC, use it for 10 minutes, it crashes. If my memory serves me, we have:
    Crashes while I've been using computer for hours: 2-3
    Crashes when I've just come back to the computer after a period of not using it: several
    Crashes over night/when at school: perhaps over a dozen

    So, it IS crashing most when I'm not using it, which is odd; considering I only sleep for 7-8 hours, and go to school for less than that :/

    foogoo: System is fairly old (pushing a couple of years now) :)
    I assume it's compatible: I don't see any reason why it isn't...
    And the Windows clock freezes with the rest of the computer, if that's what you meant.

    And how do I run a FULL chkdsk? I all I know right now is typing "chkdsk" into run, heh.

    ColonelAngus: I just run SpyBot, which cleared out a couple of items.
    But my PC never has that much spyware on it. Still, there could be a problem I guess. Is Spybot all I need, or should I install a few more programs? ^^
    And no, my drive isn't fragmented. Set to defrag every night :)
    VirtualMemory is now set to that, and SystemRestore is actually off (no HD space to spare, heh).

    Erm, I can't think of anything else right now.
    Will chkdsk fully check out my memory? Or would another program help with that? I guess for now, I can try that, once sound kind soul tells me how to run a full chkdsk (if it's anything more than "chkdsk")

    Thanks a lot, all. Getting somewhere finally, heh.

    Hmm, I'm actually thinking of seeing if a reformat would solve thje problem. But I haven't got anything to back up onto right now, and I'm too lazy to do it. So I'd like to avoid it, bleh.
     
  6. Farbib

    Farbib Corporal

    As far as Chkdsk goes, it does not check memory, just your hard drive for errors, and it sounds like you're running Chkdsk in read-only mode, which does not repair errors. Try "chkdsk /f /r"

    For testing the RAM, Memtest86 is one program to do it, fits on floppy you can boot to, then runs memory tests.

    I reformat on average every six months, and think it's good for the machine. If you're up for it, because as you know you have to reload stuff and all that it's a pretty final act. Also for isolating software vs hardware problems too if you suspect faulty hardware.
     
  7. ColonelAngus

    ColonelAngus Beefy

    It's been awhile since I've been on, but I'll post anyway. You may have already had your Spyware qustion answered but I'll answer anyway.

    Along with Spybot you should run Add-Aware. It works well with Spybot.

    If your computer keeps freezing when you are using it for a long time it might be that the temperature inside might be getting too high. You might need a new fan or heat sink. Just a thought.

    Or it might be dusty inside your computer. Dust killed my brothers computer.

    Did you find out what's wrong yet?
     

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